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Critical Management Education Beyond the Siege

David Boje and Khadija Al-Arkoubi

New Mexico State University

Chapter draft dated February 11, 2008

Accepted for publication in Handbook of Management Learning, Education and Development (Sage). Editors: Steve Armstrong & Cynthia Fukami

“… the absence of any serious discussion of pedagogy in cultural studies and in the debates about higher education has narrowed significantly the possibilities for redefining the role of educators as public intellectuals and of students as critical citizens capable of governing rather than simply being governed.” [Giroux, 1997: 259]

Abstract

Management education has been dominated by managerialism and its underlying assumptions (rationality, efficiency, performativity, control, objectivity, etc). Although some management scholars have denounced management orthodoxies and have provided illuminating critiques of business curricula and their ingrained pedagogies, their efforts have yet to achieve the promised emancipatory journey for educators, students, and citizens. Critical management education (CME) is at impasse, unable to liberate management teaching from the siege of managerialist capitalism, and the corporatization and deskilling of the university. While we recognize the many challenges facing CME, we outline and explain its tenets and offer some ideas on how they can be translated into practice.

Introduction

Critical Management Education (CME) arose in the 1990s (Perriton and Reynolds, 2004)

to counter the managerialist orientation in business schools. Managerialism is an ideology of

performativity (work until you drop), efficiency (people defined as expendable resources), and

commitment to short term, bottom line decision criteria. CME questions these ethical

assumptions, and seeks to liberate management education to be more inclusive of a variety of

stakeholder voices and a myriad of issues, including the environment, labor, community, multi-

culturalism, racial/ethnic diversity, and social concerns.

CME rebels against the positivist, dogmatic management education models and is well

grounded in the social and moral roles of education. Although it has been influenced by a

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number of academic disciplines including Critical Theory (CT), critical theory (ct lowercase),1

Critical Pedagogy (CP) and Critical Management Studies (CMS), it is still searching for its soul.

CT can be defined as the theories and methods of the Frankfurt School between 1923

and end of World War II. ‘ct’ (lowercase) typically refers to subsequent critical theories,

theorists, and methods originated since the 1970s. CP stands for the branch of education known

as Critical Pedagogy, initiated by Paulo Freire in the 1960s. CMS (Critical Management Studies)

is a branch of scholarship that is informed by CT, ct, and most recently by CP. CMS has lead to

writers and teachers developing texts and materials for Critical Management Education (CME).

In this chapter, we first offer an historical overview on CME drawing from its

philosophical grounds reflected in the Frankfurt School Critical Theory (known as CT)

(Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 1932-1939), and later work, in contemporary ‘critical theory’

‘ct’. Second, we propose closer alliance of CT, ct, and critical pedagogy, ‘CP’. Third, we explore

the meaning of critical, in CT, ct and CP, and critical thinking approaches that are prominent in

managerialism. Fourth, we explicate tenets of CME such as, ethics of answerability, commitment

to emancipation/ transformation, diffusion of power in the classroom, promotion of

multiculturalism, and the belief in multidisciplinary approaches. Finally, we identify some

challenges of CME and offer suggestions on how these may be faced.

FOUNDATIONS OF CRITICAL MANAGEMENT EDUCATION (CME)

Critical Theory (CT): The Frankfurt School

CT designates the philosophy, theory, and practice of the directors and associates of the

Frankfurt School Institute for Social Research. Boje (2007b) asserts that there were three phases:

The inception, the aestheticization of critical theory, and the search for enlightenment.

Phase 1 of CT: The Inception

In the First Phase of CT, Theodor Wiesengraund Adorno and Max Horkheimer were

directors of the Frankfurt School Institute for Social Research. Besides Adorno and Horkheimer,

Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, Henry Gossmann, Arkadij Gurland, Otto Kirchheimer, Leo

Lowenthal, Herbert Marcuse, Franz Newmann, Freidrich Pollock, and successor Jürgen

Habermas are recognized as the main figures of CT. The Frankfurt School was founded in

1 CT ct is a well-known distinction in Critical Management studies to designate important transitions in the Frankfurt school (CT) from more recent work in ct.

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Frankfurt in 1923, but it was Horkheimer’s directorship after 1931, that gave it prominence.

Horkheimer and Adorno focused on an empirical and historically ground interdisciplinary

research program to overcome the inadequacies of Hegelian, Marxist, and Kantian theories.

Horkheimer’s (1974) Critique of Instrumental Reason (a collection of his writing from mid-

forties to 1967) asserted that business goals once achieved become instrumental means to new

goals, and that this progression is without ethical moorings. Reason without spiritual

(transcendentally reflexive) substance becomes the curse of science made into technology

instrumentally deployed by business and public administration. Horkheimer (1974), for a time

thought that CT would, after Nazism’s defeat, begin a new day of “authentically human history’

brought about by “reforms or revolution.” Yet new forms of dictatorship emerged.

Adorno and Horkheimer are particularly critical of Immanuel Kant’s (1781) “Kritik der

reinen Vernunft” (Critique of Pure Reason). There was hope that the Enlightenment could be

salvaged in critical interdisciplinary projects. Horkheimer’s (1933) essay ‘Materialismus und

Moral’ (Materialism and Morality), is the first CT materialist critique of Kantian ethics.

Horkheimer (1933/1993: 25) points out how the Kantian doctrine of the categorical imperative

anticipates the end of morality, and helps it along by making a “distinction between interest and

duty.” Adorno (1963/2000) talks about it as the distinction between Kant’s ethics of conviction,

and an ethics of responsibility. Boje (2007b) argues that industrial revolution gave way to the

post-industrial revolution of late modern capitalism, Kant’s writings on Moral Philosophy have

been transformed to achieve currency in a field known as ‘Business Ethics’ in the Academy of

Management, and Public Administration Ethics, in the Academy of Public Administration.

Horkheimer’s (1933/1993: 25) critique is the basis for an ethics of responsibility. Horkheimer’s

challenge is how can any “society of isolated individuals” acting with ethics of conviction bring

about meaningful change in the social order (Horkheimer, 1933/1993: 25)? At the close of the

first phase of CT, it was business as usual for the capitalist and Marxist-inspired states:

exploitation reined. Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s (June 1947) introduction could well be

describing our contemporary situation. Public opinion has become a commodity, which is

manipulated to keep attention away from depravation and oppression by language manipulations.

Phase 2 of CT: The Aestheticization of Critical Theory

The Second Phase of CT (1947-1970) began with Horkheimer and Adorno’s (1944)

Dialectic of Enlightenment. It is regarded as a turning point in CT implying the aesthetic critique

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of the Culture Industry. The Nazi fascism of World War II left them disillusioned about the

prospects for any positive program of empirical interdisciplinary study. Clearly, their goal of

ultimate emancipation from fascism lies elsewhere than scientific Enlightenment. They turned to

more Weberian and Nietzchean skepticism to contend with the dark reality of post World War II.

In particular, Phase 2 work indicates a distrust of state and corporate control over the culture

industry. Adorno (1963/2000: 170) ends his series of 1963 lectures by declaring, “There is no

ethics […] in the administered world.” Adorno says he owes Nietzsche “the greatest debt” for his

skepticism (p. 172).

The second phase was characterized by the critique of the mass culture that is in reality

embedded in an elitist hierarchical society where privileged people prevail culturally and

socially. Both Adorno and Horkheimer were working with an ‘inner circle’ composed of

Marcuse, Lowenthal, Fromm and Benjamin. This circle initiated some of the most critical

analyses of ideology ever produced (Kellner, 1990). Having the intention to promote transition

toward socialism, scholars under this circle denigrated capitalist ideologies in research and

theory. They attacked mass culture such as, literature, music, magazines, films, TV, radio, etc.

and other artifacts of the culture industry. They also fostered the necessity of developing the

sociology of mass culture and were persuaded that cultural phenomena are the translation and

reflection of the whole socio-economic structure. In fact, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, a

theory of culture should involve the processes of production, reproduction, distribution,

exchange and consumption (Held, 1980).

Phase 3 of CT: The Search for Enlightenment

The third Phase of CT (1970- 1980s) is characterized by the leadership of Jürgen

Habermas. We would argue that Habermas has turned the clock back to redeem the First Phase

of CT. Habermas seeks the Enlightenment ideal, an emancipatory potential attainable by neo-

Kantian moral philosophy applied to social science. This can be seen in Habermas’

communicative ethics. More recently Habermas picks up on Luhmann, as well as Parsons in a

turn that can only be described, as structural functionalist system theory. The result is that

whereas Horkheimer and Adorno (as well as Fromm and Marcuse) were moving away from

formal, absolutist, universalistic ethics to one that Bakhtin (1990, 1993) calls an ethics of

answerability, Habermas is headed to the other direction. He fearlessly criticized positivism and

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its contribution to the ‘technocratization’ of the social consciousness. He turned his back to the

methodology of the exact sciences and based his work on hermeneutics (interpretive

methodology of human sciences). He believed that critical theory of society is capable of

ensuring order, reason, truth and justice. Following Kant’s position, Habermas pointed out that

moral obligation requires that we always give up our selfish interests when they clash with

universal ones (Ingram, 1987). However, his discourse on ethics has shifted away from Kant’s

categorical imperative into moral argumentation. The latter suggests that the sine qua non

condition for a norm to be valid is its satisfaction of every one’s interests. Therefore, unlike

Kant, who promoted a monological and solitary consciousness, Habermas concentrated on

collective moral consciousness characterized by perspective-taking and inclusion of the

community interests (Habermas, 1991).

In sum, CT stands for the three phases of theory and research of the Frankfurt School

founders and associates. Each phase has its characteristics and pioneers. While there are

disagreements, all converge in the pursuit of social justice and a critique of managerialist

approaches to capitalism.

Contemporary Critical Theory (ct)

It is important to develop the current directions in ‘ct’ that were ignored by the Frankfurt

School CT. Critical theory (ct) has given credentials to the feminist movement and is

characterized by women’s contributions. In fact, one of the major problems with CT is its lack of

female scholarship. For example, Adorno, Horkheimer, and key male associates including

Walter Benjamin, Henry Gossmann, Arkadij Gurland, Eric Fromm (often excluded by CT

historians), Otto Kirchheimer, Leo Lowenthal, Herbert Marcuse, Franz Newmann, and Freidrich

Pollock, and successor Habermas dominated CT. With little ct there has been more female

authorship. However, several feminists have contributed not usually cited in ‘ct’ reviews: Susan

Bordo, Judith Butler, Hélène Cixous, Donna Haraway, Lucé Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva (see

Boje, 2007b for a review).

Over the decades there has been an increase in feminist ct scholarship, beginning with

Calás, Smircich, Fulop (1999) and Townley (1993, 1994). The critical theory (ct) has resulted in

the movement of ‘Critical Management Studies’ (CMS) that focuses more superficially on

gender as well as ethnic and racial diversity, postcolonialism, and multiculturalism. A complete

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review is beyond the scope of this chapter, since the literature is so prolific that we can barely

scratch the surface.

The ‘ct’ writing began its inroad into management studies in the 1970s with focus on

new-Marxism, hegemony, and labor process (Benson, 1977; Braverman, 1974; Gramsci, 1971;

Wood & Kelley, 1978), expanded in the 1980s, broke loose in the 1990s with the growing

application of Foucault’s work, and the 2000s taking more focus on narrative, discourse, and

rediscovering CT ethics (see the list below for more information on the scholars who contributed

to ct in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s). This emphasis shows the proliferation and the growing

impact of ‘ct’ on all disciplines, including management education.

Table 1: Development of ‘ct’ in recent decades2

Decades Key Areas Pioneers 1980s: Critique of capitalism;

managerial bias in accounting; doing critical management research methods

Clegg (1981, 1989); Clegg & Dunkerley (1980); Ferguson (1984); Jermier (1985); Knights & Willmott, (1986a, b, 1988, 1989); Knights, Willmott & Collinson (1985); Littler (1982, 1984); McCarthy (1981); Steffy & Grimes (1986); Shor (1980), Thompson (1989); Tinker (1985); Willmott & Knights (1989).

1990s Managerialism in TQM; critical storytelling; Critical Human Relations

Adler (1990); Adler, Forbes, & Willmott (2006); Alvesson (1990); Boje (1995); Boje & Dennehy (1993); Boje & Winsor (1993); Calás (1993, 1994); Calás & Smircich (1991, 1993, 1999); Collins (1995); Deetz (1992); Forester (1993); Fulop & Linstead (1999); Hardy & Clegg (1996); Hassard, Holliday, & Willmott, (1998, 1999); Jermier (1998); Jermier, Nord, & Knights (1994); Parker (1999); Thompson (1990); Townley (1993, 1994); Willmott (1993, 1998)

2000s Racial and ethnic diversity; spectacles of capitalism

Boje (2000; 2001a-c; 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007a-f); Boje & Al Arkoubi, 2005); Boje & Cai, (2004, 2005); Boje, Enríquez, González, & Macías (2005); Boje, Luhman, & Baack (1999); Boje & Rosile, (2003); Delbridge (2006); Edwards & Collinson (2002); Hassard, Hogan & Rowlinson (2001); Hassard, Kelemen, & Forrester (2000); Knights & Willmott (2000, 2007) ; Knights, Noble; Levy & Egan (2003); Mills, Mills, Forshaw & Bratton (2006); Mills, Simmons, & Mills (2005); Parker (2002); Prasad (2003); Thompson & McHugh (2002); Thompson & Newsome (2004); Thompson & Smith (2001); Tinker (2002); Vurdubikis, & Willmott (2001); Willmott (2003, 2005).

2 The references in Table One can be found at http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/655/CMS_guide.htm. We apologize for leaving anyone’s work out. See also Academy of Management CMS interest group http://group.aomonline.org/cms/Resources/Bibliography/cmsbib.htm

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In sum, what is occurring now is some resurgence of interest in difference in early phases

of CT, and implications of ct scholarship in gender, diversity, and multiculturalism. In addition,

there is now interdisciplinary work to develop a more Critical Pedagogy (CP). We explore these

conditions next.

CRITICAL MANAGEMENT EDUCATION (CME) AND ALLIANCE OF CT, ct AND CRITICAL PEDEGOGY (CP)

We would like to acknowledge and encourage the growing intertwinement of CMS with

CP. From the 1970s through the early 1990s, CMS and CP have remained separate disciplines,

with a paucity of cross-citation. All roads of CP lead to Paulo Freire (1972).

CP is grounded in the struggle for social justice, democracy, and the most humane precepts of

life. Paulo Freire, the father of CP, regarded education as a way to transform and liberate the

human kind. He fought against oppression and sought to develop students who are capable of

taking actions and changing their own realities. At the heart of the Freirean philosophy is the

courage to alter one’s own identities in a sharp contradiction with the dominating, oppressing

and widely held assumptions. Therefore, students are always exhorted to develop subject

positions and act as critical analysts and change agents.

In terms of Critical Management Pedagogy (CMP) we will limit our review to

commentaries on critical theory reforms in management education and the university. CMS has

just begun to develop its own teaching texts, and pedagogy materials. In fact, since the 1990s,

critical theorists (i.e. Alvesson & Deetz, 2004; Alvesson and Willmott, 1992; 1996; Boje, 1994;

1996; Ehrensal, 2001; Fenwick, 2001, 2005; Humphries & Dyer, 2005; Grey, 2004; French and

Grey, 1996; Grey and Mitev 1995; Humphries & Dyer, 2005; Monaghan, 2001; Parker & Jary,

1995; Reed, 2002; Reynold, 1999; Summers, Boje, Dennehy, & Rosile, 1997; Thompson, 2005;

Willmott, 1997) started to demystify the role of educational institutions, especially business

schools, as agents of regulation and control of organizations and people. They denounced the

utilitarian and technical trend in knowledge transfer and the focus on a purely positivistic

worldview. They also deplored the prevailing wave of celebrating capitalism; shareholders profit

maximization and enforcement of managers’ hegemony in the educational act. For them, schools

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should be deemed the sites of critical learning, and social, political and cultural emancipation.

Schools are supposed to prepare critical citizens, who can voice their opinions with courage, and

otherwise challenge the embedded assumptions of instrumental society.

The CMS movement is heavily influenced by Freire’s (1972) CP, which according to

Perriton and Reynolds (2004: 108) still deserves further attention: “Critical pedagogy […] is a minority and marginalized activity within management education that deserves to be more widely recognized and adopted. Although there has been a proliferation of literature on management learning, especially in terms of techniques of teaching, the efforts of critical pedagogues in ME have rarely been articulated and consequently we suspect their practice probably occurs in a fragmented and ad hoc manner” As with CMS, CP took off in the 1970s with work by Stanley Aronowitz (1973, 1977;

Aronowiz & Giroux, 1985), developed in the 1980s, and the 1990s, Henry Giroux (1991); bell

hooks (1994), Peter McLaren (1995), and Maxine Greene (1996). Unlike CT, there is more early

reference by CP to critical feminist work by Hannah Arendt (1963). In the main, ct will cite

some of the same CT scholars, such as Habermas (1972) and Marcuse (1966), and in ct work by

Braverman (1974). There seems less CP focus on work by Horkheimer, Adorno, or Fromm.

The focus in CP is on taking back the classroom from predatory capitalism. Accordingly,

Aronowitz and Giroux (1991: 76) have regarded schools as “places where a sense of identity,

worth, and possibility is organized through the interaction among teachers, students, and texts”.

At the heart of this process lies the andragogy (the theory of adult learning as developed by

Malcolm Knowles) to be embraced. The latter should reinforce the perception of schools as

“democratic public spheres’ where administrators, students and teachers play the role of ‘public

intellectuals’ who continuously challenge the existing assumptions in an attempt to expand ‘civic

courage’, and permanently transform public life (Aronowitz and Giroux, 1991).

While unfolding our story of CT, ct, and CP, one cannot ignore Ghoshal’s outcry against

teaching bad management theories and their moral implications on management practice: “our

theories and ideas have done much to strengthen the management practices that we are all now

so loudly condemning” (Ghoshal, 2005: 75). More than that, Ghoshal suggests that “by

propagating ideologically inspired amoral theories, business schools have actively freed their

students from any sense of moral responsibility’ (p. 76). One hears echoes of Horkheimer and

Adorno. Therefore, there are problematic issues in management education that one cannot deny.

These include for instance, encountering students who are deprived from sense of ethics and do

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not recognize their roles in their communities or societies, the commodification of management

education and the engagement of management academics in the game of sustaining educational

models that promote management orthodoxies. Certainly one can point to corporatization of the

university, with presidents and deans, demanding salaries like those of corporate CEOs, and

turning the university into McUniversity, as common ground of CP and ct.

Does “educational theory and practice stand at an impasse” as Giroux (1997: 71) claims?

How can we liberate education from the siege (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985) that many want

purposefully or aimlessly to sustain?

Our story is still unraveling and we think its time to raise questions for both ct and CP.

First, we share with you our understanding of critical management education (CME) focusing

mainly on its tenets and underlying assumptions. Second, we explore its content and andragogy,

and finally we identify some of the challenges of CMS and CP, and offer some suggestions on

how these may be faced.

WHAT IS CRITICALITY?

When exploring the concept “critical thinking” versus CT, ct, or CP, one must first be

clear about the sense of the word “critical”.

In conventional managerialism, critical may be viewed as arming students with problem

solving skills and training them to look for unconventional, even creative remedies to crises and

difficulties they face in the business environment. In CMS or CP, on the other hand, being

critical means students (and faculty) recognizing their agency as citizens, their complicity in

systems of production and commodification in a world where 95% of the population of the world

is below common poverty line designations for advanced corporate nations.

In this next section we adapt and extend Mingers (2000) specification of four dimensions

of the meaning of critical, i.e. a skepticism towards rhetoric, tradition, power, and objectivity.

Besides these aspects we like to add two more elements: being critical towards oneself

(reflexivity) and towards the reality where education takes place (see Figure 1). While some

students may attain all these dimensions, their level of general criticality may vary according to

the educational system they went through, their worldview, degree of maturation, dominant

intellectual/epistemological paradigm and accumulated ontological experiences in life.

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Figure 1. Six dimensions of being critical

Rhetoric: The critique of rhetoric or critical thinking is the simplest level that reflects the ability

to assess others’ arguments, opinions, and use of the language in a logical, abstract as well as

reflective ways. This aspect is what business schools and management departments run after and

try to promote in their educational systems. Although we recognize critical thinking as defined

by Mingers (2000) as fundamental, we feel compelled to add the term discourse with small‘d’

and big ‘D’ (Alvesson & Karreman, 2000). Small‘d’ discourse is talk and text in social contexts

and practice. Big ‘D’ discourse is focused on broader cultural and historically-situated language

systems.

The term discourse has been vastly controvertible (Grant, Keenoy, and Oswick, 1998; Fairhurst,

2007). Whether it is a talk or a text, for us, discourse involves several ways of expression

(speech, myth, story, essay, conversation, dialogue, account, metaphors, tropes, etc) that require

careful attention to be understood, analyzed, reflected upon, deconstructed and reconstructed.

We don’t include at this level of criticality Discourse with big ‘D’ which is a general system of

thought developed in a particular historical time (Foucault, 1980) or ‘critical Discourse’ as in the

work of Fairclough. We are somewhat suspicious of big ‘D’ and little ‘d’ as a duality, one we

think that managerialism can continue to exploit, keeping ‘critical thinking’ confined to problem

6. Reality

4. Objectivity

2. Tradition

Criticality

3. Power

1. Rhetoric

5. Reflexivity

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solving, while the source of problems are in the material conditions, and the logics of the

political economy. It is the interaction between micro-discourse and macro-Discourse and the

necessity for students to be able to engage in a critical (de)construction of knowledge and reality

that we consider as essential for criticality.

Tradition: Skepticism toward tradition or conventional wisdom infers challenging our deep

assumptions and taken for granted attitudes and views about traditions and customs whether they

are embedded in organizations or are well rooted in societies concerning gender, race, ethnicity,

and how the Other (e.g. individuals belonging to a minority) is treated. Often, it is easier in

critical thinking to adhere to these common and majority held managerial or market forces values

rather than critiquing or even opposing them because they are very much promoted by powerful

groups and supported by the weight of the tradition. Does CMS dare to deconstruct them as a

way of initiating change and overcoming the inertia of the status quo, right in the classroom, as is

done routinely in CP?

Power: In critical thinking, one is supposed to be skeptical of the one dominant view and seek a

more Bakhtinian polyphony (multiple voices), and difference in meanings and perspectives

(polysemy). In CP and CMS, de-power consists of teaching students that there is no one ‘correct’

answer, otherwise ‘they will never dare to question the ‘validity of their teachers’ (Mingers,

2000: 226). And if they don’t feel the courage to challenge teachers’ authority and opinions in

the academic setting, they will be deprived in the future from the power to think differently in

their organizations or societies. More than that, they will easily accept oppression of their free

will, ideas, individuality, and personal voice, etc. The result of critical thinking is submission to

authority, to people in leadership, to teachers, etc. Conversely, learning to deal in a dialogic way

with other perspectives is extremely critical and necessary for any growth process: “We must

share each other’s excess in order to overcome our mutual lack” (Bakhtin, 1990: xxvi). Boje

(2001a) called for a restitution that overcomes the cast of dualities, hierarchical thinking, and

hegemonic reasoning. He emphasized the need to hear from marginal voices (rebellious people,

employees in the lowest ranks of the hierarchy, minorities, etc.).

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Objectivity: The final aspect of critical thinking according to Mingers (2000) is being skeptical

of knowledge and objectivity. By contrast in CMS and CP, it is about recognizing that there is no

value free knowledge and that the construction of knowledge and the processing of information

are always subjective and subject to power structures and interest groups in particular context

(Foucault, 1980; Freire, 1970). Which knowledge gets to be promoted and propagated and which

one gets to be marginalized or even silenced depends heavily on political agendas. In the process

of learning, Weick (2007: 6) suggests that we should focus on dropping our tools to gain

wisdom. In critical thinking metaphor, story and trope are just tools for efficiency and

performativity. He states: “learning to drop one’s tools to gain lightness, agility, and wisdom

tend to be forgotten in an era where leaders and followers alike are preoccupied with knowledge

management reengineering (Boje, 2006), acquisitions and acquisitiveness. Nevertheless, human

potential is realized as much by what we drop, as what we acquire”.

Reflexivity: Being critical towards oneself entails first a capacity to develop an awareness of

oneself at individual, relational and collective levels. Second, it requires an understanding of our

present/actual self and the possible one (the one to which we aspire). One’s level of reflexivity

can heavily contribute to our transition toward the possible self and will always play a key role in

our growth and transformation. Critical theory work by Ricoeur (1992) looks at how narrative

identity is one of sameness being dialectic with selfhood. Identity stories (or narratives) solicit

our obligation to take action, to recognize our connection of selfhood on a moral plane to others.

In sameness identity there is a distancing, a standing back from the other, and the kinds of

apathetic world we live in is the result. Without reflexivity, learning about selfhood in the world

of others will be hindered. If one refuses or does not know how to be critical towards oneself,

they will be unable to develop awareness about others. Critical thinking without reflexivity on

one’s selfhood, one’s complicity, and solicitude to act when one encounters a story of other

being negatively affected our shared life on the plant. For Ricoeur (1992: 218-219), as with

Adorno and Horkheimer, Kant’s “follow your maxim”, falls short, in the individualist world.

Reality: Critical thinking is not about context, especially not about one’s citizenship in the

world. CP is focused upon being skeptical toward the reality where education takes place. This

means being fully aware of one’s citizenship and one’s role as a critical citizen. In CMS,

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questioning the structural factors influencing the general educational context becomes very

relevant. These factors may include among others, historical, cultural, economic, social, and

political facts that seem to be excluded in critical thinking. Critical thinking is too focused in

small reality, what we call small ‘r.’ Small ‘r’ refers to students’ own personal context as

producers, consumers, and individuals complicit in global capitalism. The micro-little ‘r’ needs

to be tightly related to the other Reality (with the big R) and reflect the different ways in which

people are oppressed globally.

It is worth noting that all these six aspects of criticality are interwoven and they interact with

each other in a strong way. From a CP or CMS perspective, we believe students need to develop

a sufficient courage and skills to be active members in the act of constructing Reality (with a big

‘R’) by recognizing the complicity of small ‘r.’ No one of them can be seen in isolation of the

others. Criticality is a whole that is beyond any dichotomies or dual thinking of CT and ct, big D

and little d, and big R and little r. It is in the-in-between that the actions of solicitude and

answerability take place, recognizing complicity of the selfhood in more dialectic relationship to

the narratives of sameness. Nonetheless, one may develop different levels of competency related

to each aspect of criticality. It is up to critical management and CP educators to develop teaching

methods and content that help students acquire and improve their competency level pertaining to

criticality dimensions.

Now that we have clarified our underlying assumptions regarding criticality, we shall

elucidate what we consider as tenets of CME.

TENETS OF CRITICAL MANAGEMENT EDUCATION

We offer five tenets of critical management education based upon the first three sections

of our chapter (see figure 2 below). These are: ethics of answerability, commitment to

emancipation, promotion of multiculturalism, challenge of dichotomies and boundaries, and de-

centered power. Each one of them is explained below. All of them are in line with the meaning

of criticality exposed above and they have a common philosophical ground with CP and CMS.

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Figure 2. Tenets of Critical Management Education

Ethics of Answerability

Answerability is Bakhtin’s term that implies responsibility and accountability of the

individual toward self and the other. It is a whole philosophy of life and of the act that “can only

be a moral philosophy" (Bakhtin, 1993:56). It is about authoring our answers through acts that

reinforce ethics, question injustice, oppression, commodification of the society, and design new

projects that create the potential for legitimizing and gratifying the deepest needs and desires of

human beings. Answerability requires critical moral beings who has skillfully learned how to

position themselves vis-à-vis immorality, how to courageously craft their ideas and actions to

serve others in their societies. It is the greatest gift an educator may have because it is based on

bravery, self-sacrifice and a permanent willingness to improve our social environment. It is very

sad to notice though that the prevailing model of education does not encourage educators to be

answerable or promote a culture of answerability in their institutions. Boje (2006) states that

“The problem with this line of ethical theory and practice is that it ignores the teachings of ‘ethic

of answerability’ to get involved and change the status quo, that its impossible to lead the good

moral life within a society or global capitalism that leads the bad moral life. For practical

business purposes, contemporary Business Ethics and Public Administration Ethics endorse a

Supposed Right to Lie and a Right to Exploit.”

Educators who do not only transfer knowledge but also values seem to be complicit in

disseminating amoral ideological beliefs (Ghoshal, 2005). They are fulfilling their roles as

Ethics of answerability

Tenets of CME

Commitment to Emancipation

Promotion of Multiculturalism

Challenge of Dichotomies

Dialogism & De-centered Power

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employees of business or management schools and act “in a spirit of managerialism” (Watson,

1999: 3). Managerialism is founded on a technical view of organizations and regards

management as a politically neutral/technical activity. Therefore, management education within

this paradigm is “the acquisition of techniques regardless of the context of their application”

(Grey and Mitev, 1995: 74). Managers get the privilege to impose their worldview, enforce their

control and come up with technical solutions to problems that are deeply grounded in issues

related to power, race, class, gender, unfairness, human dignity, etc.

Cheit (1985:50) reviewed more than 200 articles on MBA programs and codified all the

critiques. His findings fall into four categories: programs emphasize the wrong model, ignore

important work, fail to meet society’s needs, and foster undesirable attitudes. A program’s

content is oftentimes more concentrated on control, efficiency and greater effectiveness that meet

the demands of the accreditation requirements and fall under the wrong model of management

education (Porter and McKibbin, 1988). The latter is heavily reliant on economics and

quantitative methodologies that are far, most of the time, from handling complexity, uncertainty,

uniqueness and value/power clashes (Schon, 1983). Conversely, managers need to be exposed as

students and learners to ethical issues. They need to gain awareness about how their potential

position, power, values, understandings of the world affect others’ lives. In a similar vein,

management academics have to be wholly conscientious of their impact on their students’ ethical

growth and answerability development.

Pfeffer (1997; 2005) called business academics to be solicitous towards the values they

teach and warned them against turning universities into knowledge factories that are producing

limited technical competencies without consideration of ethics that serve the society as whole.

In CME, the responsibility of academics and scholars to educate should be regarded primarily as

a moral imperative that is well embedded in the praxis of ethics.

Commitment to Emancipation and Transformation

There is a strong belief in CME that learning and teaching should challenge the existing

reality rather than sustain it (Grey and Mitev, 1995) and that historically the focal principle of

CME has been the praxis (Fenwick, 2005; Freire, 1973). Commitment to this combination of

16

reflexivity and social collective actions lies at the heart of individual and societal transformation:

“Indeed in the tradition of critical pedagogy, learning is a process through which personal and

group consciousness are transfigured to unveil a world of oppression, through praxis, a dialectic

of critical reflection and practical action, learners commit to its reform” (Grey and Mitev, 1995:

32). Unfortunately, in the dominant model of management education, functional analyses that

address practical organizational problems are the ones that are more accepted while analyses that

challenge the structural order (political, ethical, social, cultural, etc.) and question the

philosophical underpinnings of organizations and management are deemed to be dangerous and

are therefore avoided (Kellie 2004; Pfeffer, 1997).

Nevertheless, historically, the original vision of Joseph Wharton when he endowed the

business school at University of Pennsylvania was to ingrain management in the social fabric of

people’s life and seek their general well-being (Grey, 2004). This noble aim cannot be achieved

without emancipating ourselves and our students from the rigidity of fixation, without challenging

our believed truths, and without ‘dropping our tools.’ Weick (2007: 15) eloquently stated that

“Your students are likely to remain among the sane if they learn to drop their tools, and you

maintain your own lightness as you teach excellence”. Teaching excellence is teaching against

rigidity, conformism and taken for granted assumptions. This may occur through creating a

relaxed free atmosphere where students can feel liberated from all kinds of fear

(academic/ideological, political, social, psychological, etc). Without this freedom (that we should

initiate) in our academic institutions, it is less likely that our students become effective social

agents in their communities. In the words of Palmer (1998: 19-20): “Institutions reform slowly,

and as long as we wait, depending on "them" to do the job for us—forgetting that institutions are

also "us"—we merely postpone reform and continue the slow slide into cynicism that

characterizes too many teaching careers.” Learning is the domain of discovery, risk, surprise,

puzzle, creation, unlimited territories, change and transformation. If we fail to liberate our

students’ potential and open the doors large in front of their growth, then they will remain

imprisoned in their own fears and will be probably incapable of becoming critical citizens.

17

Promotion of Multiculturalism

Palmer (1998) pointed out that teaching requires a deep understanding of the inner sources

of both the intent and the act. It is also about being cognizant of our identity as a teacher and

deepest self as a human being. Thus, one of the ethea of CME is to recognize differences and

celebrate them to bring about depth and richness. This tenet is about creating a sense of

relatedness, relationality and connectedness with the others that are different than us in a way or

another. It is about believing that our being in this world depends on them and our actions are

never completed and successful without them, their help and their appreciation. Embracing CME

entails a full belief in your authentic identity without faking or looking down to others’ identities.

Yet, management teaching and learning reality is pretty shocking. In the US, the politics of

identity are ongoing. Complaints of discrimination related to race, gender, ethnicity, religious

background, color, political membership, ideological convictions, cultural origin, etc. are quite

numerous while there is a majority that intentionally or unconsciously enjoys privileges.

Attending to multicultural issues in the US is still marginal and a far reached objective.

Far from the US and in the rest of the world, business schools following the American

model and adopting English as the language of teaching have mushroomed celebrating the

American educational model and the American cultural hegemony. On the other hand, the local

identities, the social, cultural, economic and political concerns in these societies have been

overlooked and/or marginalized at the expense of promoting a corporate identity that is aligned

with the giant American corporations’ identities. It is very sad to notice that management

students in several corners of the world are being molded according to the American model and

that the number one priority in American education is to make the US number 1 in the market

place. An alternative proposed by Giroux (1993: 20) is:

“to educate students to live in a multicultural world, face the challenge of reconciling

difference and community, and addressing what it means to have a voice in shaping one’s

future is part of a broader task of deepening and extending the imperatives of democracy and

human rights on both a national and global level”.

Promoting multiculturalism is all about initiating and consolidating multicultural

literacy based on a dialogic classroom where students discursively and reflexively negotiate

their identities (Hesford, 1999).

18

Challenge of Dichotomies and Boundaries

A central assumption to CME, as we regard it, is the perception of the student and the teacher as

whole human beings who cannot be deprived from their wholeness. Fostering the belief in

fragmentation, scattering, and dichotomy within the individual during the teaching and learning

process is confining the relationship of both teachers and students to the world, and negating the

strong interaction between the basic and the most fundamental components of the human fabric:

the heart, the mind, and the spirit. Palmer (1998:4) has eloquently expressed this point:

“Reduce teaching to intellect and it becomes a cold abstraction; reduce it to emotions and it becomes narcissistic; reduce it to the spiritual and it loses its anchor to the world. Intellect, emotion, and spirit depend on each other for wholeness. They are interwoven in the human self and in education at its best, and we need to interweave them in our pedagogical discourse as well.”

The dominant education model emphasizes the cerebral activity, rationality and logical

thinking. Many teachers are cautious to let emotions interfere in the learning act because they are

perceived as weakness while any discussion involving spirituality and/or religion is deemed to be

unacceptable. Moreover, the “either or” axiom is fully embraced and enacted by both teachers

and students. Getting over this dualistic thinking is what CME needs to achieve.

Another key assumption that we want to instigate in CME is the engagement in

multidisciplinary learning/teaching and the defeat of educational boundaries and all kinds of

narrow/discipline-centric thinking. This should be based on the encouragement of

interdisciplinary inquiry and the perception of management education as well grounded in the

other disciplines and the integration of business schools within the other institutions in the

Academy. There are three boundaries that we need to cross according to Costigan (2003: 14): (1)

boundaries of common sense and constructivist educational orientation, (2) boundaries of

artificially construed subject disciplines, (3) boundaries between schools of education and

schools of arts and sciences (we can add here business schools). The main advantage of crossing

the boundaries is allowing ourselves and our students to see the world from different lenses, and

uncover/explore the hidden perspectives that are never present or clear within one discipline,

school, or paradigm.

19

Dialogism and De-centered Power

One of the focal tenets of CME is the belief in an egalitarian liberatory learning agenda

and process where values of equality, participation, and collaboration are shared and celebrated.

Dialogism is a Bakhtinian concept that involves sharing power in the classroom and allowing all

the voices to be heard. It is a way to transform social interactions in the classroom and sensitize

students about relations in their larger environment (Ira and Freire, 1987). Thus, students in

CME are not passive submissive learners who fear the autocratic teacher, but they are at the heart

of the learning process. They co-create knowledge along with the teacher. The dynamics created

to help them share their perspectives, express their opinions and interpretations of the world are

central to the CME community because these dynamics promote difference and respect and

support their way of acting on reality.

In a dialogic community, both the teacher and the student preserve their uniqueness and

sense of self, but they both have the courage to listen and accept opinions that may be opposite to

their cherished beliefs. Central to these principles of self-awareness, motivation to learn and

having a stand in the world is the distinction of Knowles (1990) between pedagogy and

andragogy. The former implies the education of children while the latter refers to adult

education.

The dialogic classroom is the terrain where shared inquiry based on mutual respect is

fostered. Mutual respect means seeking connectedness, and relatedness, without merging. It is

listening to people in their wholeness without violating their space or having any intention of

control or domination. Our perception of mutual respect is well reflected by Josselson’s (1996:

93) in the following way:

“This ‘moving with’ (as opposed to ‘getting ahead of’ or ‘gaining control of’) others has not been encouraged. It is clear that we have come to the edge of our capacity as a species to wield power over one another or to solve problems with force and domination. Either we live interdependently or we all vanish. Our survival necessitates seeing what connects us, looking at what occupies the space between us”

This way both parties can transcend their own boundaries and self-limitations.

THE CHALLENGES FOR CME

How can critical management academics legitimize CME in their institutions and

overcome some of the ethical dilemmas they might themselves be subject to? We organize an

20

answer around five challenges for CME: teaching and working in the Margins, the “I” and the

“Other” in the classroom, the content of management education, and curricula development, and

bridging the gap between theory and practice. We chose these themes, because we believe they

are central to repositioning CME in today’s world.

Teaching and Working in the Margins

Perriton and Reynolds (2004:73) have pointed out that critical management educators

(CMEs) find themselves a minority in their academic institutions where the managerialist

functionalist worldview is strongly embraced and perceived as aligned with the global trend of

management in the world: “We might already have acknowledged the painful truth that, just

outside the margins of the articles we write that so proudly outline our ‘critical’ approaches, we

are embedded in an educational system that both profits from and promotes the managerialist

agenda we like to believe we are combating”. Thus CMEs find themselves isolated, sometimes

harshly criticized by their colleagues who belong to the overriding paradigm. Besides, their

courses are not a part of a whole curriculum based on the same perspective. Therefore, in the

middle of their struggle against the dominant system, their voices do not get fully listened to and

their influence on their academic and business environment turns to be partial.

While CMEs believe in their moral responsibility and their role in acting on reality, they

live unfortunately in the margins and feel continuously compelled to engage in power

negotiations. Their professional identities are torn between ensuring an academic comfort in the

institutions where they work and being change agents in their classrooms, communities and

societies. A major consequence of this situation is the position CMEs adopt vis-à-vis their

students and the learning/teaching process.

The “I” and the “Other” in the Classroom

CMEs believe in their role in engaging their students in critical learning where the

dialectics between critical reflection and action should unfold opening doors to the praxis to

shake the structural order and engage in reform. This strong stance may be based on the

assumption of an ideological supremacy that can be very hard to be accepted by some students.

In the words of Fenwick (2005: 33): “How can an educator ethically justify such radical intervention

in others’ beliefs, identities, and values? Furthermore, what views can be tolerated? How can a posture of

21

critique be adopted that is not also somewhat despotic, intolerant of intolerance, and therefore

controlling?”

Indeed, we can not ignore the clashes that may occur between the critical teacher and

students whose identities have been manipulated throughout their educational experiences and

different socialization processes. Students might find themselves in an existentialist state

characterized by loss and confusion. They might sympathise with the liberatory discourse at the

same time that they accumulate feelings of fear of failure of their future emancipatory

endeavours (Alvesson and Willmott, 1996). The dynamics of the interactions between the “I”

(teacher) and the “Other” (students) in the classroom becomes the story of different subjectivities

and torn identities trying to create meanings and define potential prospective actions with some

chances of success.

Several authors (Fenwick, 2005; Grey, 1996; Reynolds, 1999), for instance, have warned

against the ‘blind’ adoption of critical pedagogy (CP) where CMEs continue to ‘impose’ their

discourse and rationalize it regardless of students’ resistance. In this case, it is the dark side of

CP that will emerge and threaten both teachers and students. The former, will suffer from the

negative corollaries of adopting a doctrinarian standpoint and imposing it instead of working

with students and appreciating the benefits of a progressive dialogic relationship. Students on the

other hand, may develop a discomfort with both the content and the pedagogy (Currie, and

Knights, 2003), they may doubt their right and worthiness to challenge their teachers (Reynolds,

1999) and may wonder how they would fit in the global market when they graduate.

Having recognized these risks, it is useful now to reiterate the necessity of being

permanently aware of avoiding them through developing “the willingness to see one’s own world from other perspectives, the willingness to engage with them, the willingness to work things through in a positive spirit, the willingness to risk critique not just from within, but also beyond one’s own intellectual and professional world, the willingness to go on giving relentlessly of oneself, and the willingness to go on undercutting one’s own social and professional identity as one takes on the conflicting perspectives of one’s own frameworks” (Barnett, 1997: 169).

This basic challenge of identity is also related to the perceived roles of students and teachers. To

keep away from any sort of domination, imposition or coercion in the learning process we should

avoid talking about teaching and replace it with the concept of ‘dialogic inquiry’ where both

CMEs and students learn collaboratively and take turns to voice their concerns, opinions,

positions, emotions, and stories. In the words of Michel Novak: “We are always living out a

22

story. “There is no way to live a storyless […] life” (Aronowitz and Giroux, 1991: 128) yet, it is

fundamental to be able to unveil it, reflect on it, learn from it and develop a stance vis-à-vis the

world.

The Content of Management Education and Curricula Development

It is very sad to notice that the management curricula around the world are all standardized

and follow the Anglo-American model and seem to be Western ethnocentric. It is also bizarre as

Currie and Knights (2003) noted that cultural otherness is not given some intellectual space in

most typical MBA programs. One of the key challenges for CMEs is how to act on the content of

management education to make it as diverse as possible and reflective of the concerns,

specificities, cultural values, heritage and contextual characteristics of the learners.

Although, CMEs are not always involved in the development of management education curricula

another challenge for them is to go beyond the disciplinary boundaries and expose students to a

myriad of knowledge domains. This will provide according to Giroux (1997) a space for critical

discourse and will set up the foundation for students to learn how to discuss issues in a

problematic way. Moreover, the different paradigmatic perspectives explored will serve as a

source for insights and an opportunity to recognize difference and appreciate how conflicting

positions and understandings play a crucial role in creating shared meanings (Bartunek, Gordon

and Weathersby, 1983).

Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice

One of the key issues that many critical theorists have raised including Alvesson and

Wilmott (1996), and Fenwick (2005) is the tension that CMEs may create among students

between theory and practice. While the theoretical discourse tries heavily to challenge the

technicist/managerialist trend, the reality of organizations promotes profitability, competitivity,

performativity, etc. Also, other educators in the same institution foster managerial theories and

activities that are celebrating the capitalistic system and students feel this fragmentation just by

going from one course to the other. Another problem phrased by Watson (1999: 8) is that critical

academics may “talk about these ideas in language which few people understand” with the result

that the ideas have “no chance of being implemented”.

23

Several suggestions have been offered to close this gap between theory and practice. Some

of them include the creation of strong links between the academy and the workplace (Boud and

Solomon, 2002); emphasizing students experiences (Fenwick, 2005); adopting critical action

learning where students conduct field projects in volunteering organizations and engage in

reflexive conversations about them in their classes (Alvesson and Willmott, 1996; Cunliffe,

2002; Fenwick, 2003; 2005; Foley, 2001); undertaking organizational ethnographies to research

organizational members in their everyday practice and getting closer to their lived experiences

(Samra-Fredericks, 2003); interpreting and negotiating in class the narratives collected and

deciding about what may work and can be integrated in organizations and what may not. Indeed,

conducting ethnographies and appreciating the use of stories have been suggested by multiple

academics (i.e. Boje, 2006; Fineman and Gabriel, 1994; Willmott, 1994) who insisted on the

need to care about emotions and feelings, and derive insightful meanings from experiences that

would inform future actions.

The challenges of CME are tightly related to the main components of education in

general. These are: the teacher, the student, the content and the process. These should never be

seen as compartmentalized. It is the deep understanding of how these components interact in a

complex academic setting in a complex world that will provide every critical academic with the

agency to contribute to transformation.

CONCLUSION

CME is the story of a group of approaches that are beginning to pay dialogic attention to

one another. There is agreement that managerialism must be challenged with a variety of ethical

voices. There is disagreement over the particular approach to ethics. For example, Habermas

(phase 3 CT, which is a reincarnation of phase 1 Kantian ethics) turns back to the unfinished

projects of Enlightenment, in such areas as a communicative rationality. The varieties of

contemporary ‘ct’ perspectives have put a stronger focus on feminism, diversity,

multiculturalism, and postmodern approaches which question the underlying universal ethics of

Enlightenment projects.

We have suggested that CME can benefit from a closer relationship to CP. The issue

facing CME is how to translate ‘critical’ into management education. What CME can learn from

24

CP is to develop the student’s understanding on how their lives (and roles) are complicit in the

fabric of socioeconomic life.

Each of the CT and ct disciplines has its storylines, characters, concerns, context, and a

history of ideological struggles. The multi-story is still unfolding and sincerely searching for new

and better avenues that would help academics, students, professionals, managers, institutions,

communities, political actors, etc. to transcend their interests, constricted calculations, fixed

ideologies, narrow terrains, and so forth to embrace the essence of human life in its wholeness

and hold up front the human dignity in the world.

The field of CME has inherited strong philosophical principles and ethea from both

critical theory movements ‘CT’ and ‘ct’, critical pedagogy and critical management studies. It

can still benefit from an interactive and closer relationship between all of them while being open

to a multidisciplinary inquiry that considers the major historical, political, social, economic, and

cultural developments in the world.

While there is a frenetic search for a sustainable economic development in many corners

of the world, there should be a parallel search for alternatives to efficiency, competition,

performativity, consumption, and exploitation. Privileging a new political, economic, social and

cultural system based on justice, human wellbeing, and respect of human dignity entails a new

educational order that challenges the well embedded assumptions and goes beyond the quick

fixes. CME is a good alternative when it is fully embraced and supported. It is true that it won’t

radically change the practice of management overnight, but it will at least contribute to the

critical education of new generation of managers and citizens.

In a complex, McDonaldized world, several challenges of CME that relate to the subject

(teacher and student), content and the process of teaching and learning remain undefeated.

Nevertheless, it is quite clear that a strong belief in the tenets of CME as outlined above will

open doors to a different practice of education. This practice will radically refute the mere

commodification of educational products in a serious attempt to get out of the box of

managerialism and overcome the blind followership of the current world socio-economic order.

A powerful commitment to the ethics of answerability, emancipation, multidisciplinary

exploration of issues, diffusion of power, social justice and challenge of dualistic dichotomic

thinking will certainly take CME beyond the siege of managerialism and will encourage every

critical management educator to start the first step of the thousand mile journey.

25

We have major concerns about the encroachment of managerialism into university

education. In the United States, the corporatization of the university is a movement, which is

gaining ground. University presidents are acting as if they are CEOs; academic freedom of

students and faculty has lost ground to hierarchical administered curriculum and governance. In

Australia (and elsewhere) government is defining and administering the research agenda of

universities. University ranking systems in the UK follow a managerialist ideology. In these

times there is greater need than ever before for critical management education.

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